“Sinister?! Apocalypse!! Show yourselves!!” I yelled as I looked about the expansive throne room. My feelings of anger and hatred toward my two enemies began to boil inside of me. Feelings built up over all the losses I’ve suffered, all the family that I’ve lost, began to resurface.

 

That was coupled with the eerie feeling of the throne room. It was a very dark, dimly lit room about the size of a high school auditorium, with stone floors and walls. Banners hung from the ceiling, banners colored either black or red, with a diamond shaped emblem on them-the same one on Sinister’s forehead.

 

At the very back of the expansive room sat Sinister’s throne. His throne was made from what appeared to be gold, but with blood red upholstery. The images carved into it gave off nothing but a sense of hopelessness and despair.

 

There must be another way out of here that I don’t see. I thought to myself. I began to stretch out with my telekinesis, feeling along the cracks in the floors and the walls for anything that may trigger a secret door. I searched the throne room floor, the walls, (and fought the urge to throw up as I passed most of the blood) and then the stage the throne was set upon. Then I found it . . . a switch on the throne. It would reveal a passage that was hidden behind the throne that would lead to another hidden area, somewhere that I figured very few people knew existed, since neither Eros nor Charge knew about it, and they were both high on Sinister’s people list.

 

I ran forward toward the throne, ready to finally face my enemies—when suddenly, from out of the ground, a figure jumped out, spun around and kicked me in the chest, so hard that I flew backward from him, my goggles flying from my face to land broken on the ground several feet away from me. I flipped to my feet and analyzed the figure of this enemy. He was slightly taller than I, dressed in all black, with black leather pants and a full-length black leather coat, a black tunic, and a black mask, with two air holes and two slits for eyes that appeared to be black—devoid of irises. A symbol like that of an h with a line cut through it (ħ) was on the forehead of the mask. He carried a staff that had a deadly-looking scythe at one end.

 

“Look, I don’t know who you are, and I don’t want to harm you, but I’m getting to that hidden passage, whether I have to go through you or not.” I said, making sure that he knew I was serious and meant business.

 

“You can try to get past Hades,” the guy said, “but you won’t succeed. “You will die.” He finished, lowering his staff to point the blade at me.

 

“Not today.” I said, pulling my sword free of its sheathe and getting ready to go on the offensive.

 

With a grunt I ran forward toward him, raising my sword to strike. But when I swung it downward, it went straight through him. It was like cutting through a mist. Upon paying closer attention, I could tell that the guy actually turned himself into mist—a mist whose upper body began to reform and swing the scythe-end of the staff at me. I blocked the staff with my sword and pushed him away.

 

I tried to strike him with a vertical slash, but he simply spun to his right out of the way, then, using the staff for balance, he jumped into the air and spun, kicking me in the face. I shook the pain off and went at him again, this time swinging horizontally. He used the staff for balance again and jumped over my sword swing, then tried to kick me in the face, but I ducked underneath his foot. This caused him to swing over my head and land behind me. I sensed him swinging the scythe end down at me, but I parried with my sword.

 

This is taking too damn long! I thought to myself as I channeled a psychic bolt and fired it at him. The blast hit him full-on—but it had no affect on him whatsoever! I next tried using my telekinesis to force him into a wall and knock him unconscious.

 

I immediately felt like a dumb ass when his body seemed to vanish as he hit the wall—it was as if he merged with the shadows somehow! I tried to detect when he’d return, expecting him to come at me again, but I couldn’t detect his thought patterns with my telepathy.

 

So instead, I reached out with my telekinesis, analyzing the room, all cracks and crevices again, to find my opponent. And upon my search I felt his mass forming behind me, ready to strike at me with the scythe.

 

I hurriedly turned around, slinging my arm in a slapping motion, knocking the staff out of his hand with telekinesis, and then kicked him in the chest as he finally formed a solid mass. The strength of the kick caused him to slide across the floor away from me. I stood in an offensive stance, sword raised above my head.

 

Then Hades reached out his hand at me, a dark aura forming around it, and to my surprise a pool of darkness rose from the ground and slapped the sword from my hand. I looked away from Hades to the path of my sword and tried to go after it, but as I did, Hades must have teleported through the ground again, and he rose from the ground in front of me and swung a punch at me.

 

I blocked his punch, and then countered with one of my own to his jaw. Hades staggered backward, then lowered himself to the ground and attempted to sweep kick me. I quickly did a back-flip over his foot, landing as he rose to his feet. The two of us began trading punches and kicks back and forth, blocking each other effectively, each seeming to be just as good as the other, until we both attempted a front kick at the same time, knocking each other across the room.

 

As soon as I got my bearings again, I cut loose with a strong Phoenix-enhanced telekinetic blast, the golden-hued energy flowing from my hands. However, rather than hitting Hades, the blast collided with a dome of pure black shadowy energy that erected around him, as though pulled from the infinite shadows in the room—shadows which quickly formed into a black energy beam trying to force its way past my blast.

 

For at least a minute the two of us stood stalemated, neither one able to outdo the other. Then some sort of involuntary reaction occurred. An explosion in the center of our beams occurred, forcing the two of us backward into the surrounding walls—hard.

 

Hades was the first to stand. Shadowy energy began to form in his hands and transform into scythes. Scythes which he threw at me. I cartwheeled to avoid the first projectile, then lunged out of the way of the second. Before he could form a third, I channeled my telekinesis to summon a set of psi-claws on my right hand and fired them at Hades. He ducked to avoid them, but he was clipped on the side of the face by one of them.

 

“Yarrgh!” Hades yelled. He touched the side of his face where the claw had cut him, then removed his mask to wipe at the blood flow.

 

And as he did so, my heart sank to the bottom of my stomach.

 

Eyes that used to be brown stared at me in anger and frustration, the color now completely blackened. And filled with hatred, no recognition whatsoever. But I recognized him.

 

“K-Kevin?” I squeaked in disbelief.

 

“Your Kevin does not exist,” Hades replied to me, as the wound on his face turned into mist, then turned into completely healed flesh, “only Hades. And now you will suffer the full wrath of my death powers!” As he said this, he held his hands up at me. I found myself instantly immobilized. Pools of dark shadowy ooze ensnared my feet, as an icy numbness consumed them. I suddenly realized the extent of my brother’s powers. Kevin was able to control the shadows, as well as merge with them, and command energy that could force the life energy out of some one. Like he was doing to me now. As the ooze covered my body, I could feel my life energy being suffocated out of me, and feelings of sorrow began to push past my mental defenses and into my mind.

 

“Kevin!” I said weakly, the effects of his powers quickly killing me. “Please, don’t do this! I’m your brother for Christ’s sake!”

 

“I AM HADES, CRETIN! YOUR KEVIN IS NO MORE!” he replied.

 

I couldn’t let this end this way. I had to stop the demon that must have possessed my brother. I concentrated with the last of my strength to destroy this death cocoon I was being entrapped in, using my telepathy to eliminate the thoughts trying to enter my mind, and my telekinesis to expand the matter around me. With a great burst of my power, I succeeded in breaking the barrier that surrounded me.

 

Hades looked surprised that I had escaped his power. I knew that he was surprised by the glowing that surrounded me, my body seemingly engulfed in fire. As the ‘flames’ dissipated, Hades charged at me again, a death-energy scythe in hand. I quickly dodged out the way and mentally retrieved my sword.

 

“Aargh!” I yelled. I looked down to see the scythe imbedded in my stomach. Hades had been too fast for me and had come behind me while I got my sword. A feeling double that of the dread and death I had just felt began to spread through my lower body and I fell off the scythe to the floor and onto my back.

 

Hades knelt above me as tears came to my eyes. “There, there, lad. It’ll all be over soon. Embrace your death,” he said as he raised the scythe above his head.

 

On the downward swing I caught his hand, then quickly jabbed my psi-claws through his chest. Hades began to gasp uncontrollably, then went silent. As I looked into his eyes, they turned from black in color to their original brown. But by then it was already too late.

 

“J-Josh?” he asked fearfully.

 

“Oh God. Kevin!” I said as I willed my claws to vanish. His body began to fall to the floor, but I quickly caught him, holding him in my arms.

 

“I’m sorry.” Kevin said. “But I couldn’t stop him. He—he controlled me. . .”

 

“Shh!” I said, “Save your strength. I’m gonna heal you, and then you can get out of here, and. .”

 

“It’s not possible,” he said. “Your powers aren’t going to be able to heal me. Sinister already knew that. The powers of shadow and death that I possess are able to cancel out yours. It’s why if ever you or any other mind-reader would try to find me it wouldn’t work. It’s why he spared me. . .to hurt you.”

 

“But—how—“

 

“—am I able to tell you this? The powers that had me bound forced me to see the horrible things I was doing without being able to control them. I was brainwashed into being Sinister’s servant. He used some sort of special serum--”

 

“--Kevin—“

 

“No, you shush. It’s my time to talk. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I couldn’t save Mom and Dad, I’m sorry that I made you have to do this, I’m sorry that I never told you that I was bi, and I’m sorry that I never got to fight alongside you, now that I know that I’m a mutant.”

 

The flood of information that was washing over me was becoming too much, but I tried to ignore it so that I could focus on the only relative I had left before all of this started. Before the attack on my home. Before my parents were transformed. My last hope had been to at least find my brother alive. “Kevin, you can’t die!!”

 

“I can, and I must, and I will. Goodbye Josh,” he said. I could feel the life slipping away from him, the light in his eyes fading. Then one last thought came from him.

 

Promise me that you’ll stop them both. Promise me, He thought spoke to me.

 

<I promise.> I replied. Kevin attempted to smile. Then, he was still.

 

Sobbing, I closed his eyes, my hands shaking, sadness and anger taking over. More was anger. I knew what Sinister had intended. Either I was going to kill my brother, or I was going to let him kill me. He wanted to make me sad, make me turn away.

 

But all he did was make me angrier. How dare he do this to me? A voice screamed inside my head. Anger and hatred for my enemies began to take over me, and as my anger grew, my power involuntarily activated and increased exponentially. I could feel the Phoenix Force within me growing, enveloping my body. With some sort of second sight, I could see the transformation that was taking place in my body—and in my uniform—as if I were seeing into a mirror.

 

An eerie glow had enveloped my skin, seemingly radiating an orange light. My blue eyes began to glow with the same orange color. My hair, before the battle being cut short and being changed to fully white, had turned back to being jet black. My uniform went from being mostly black to a completely different outfit—my gloves became golden colored as well as my boots. My bodysuit looked like a male version of Jean’s, except that mine was white instead of green, and the sash she wore around her waist was a gold belt around mine, a bird emblem being the buckle.

 

Automatically, my Phoenix Blade went back to its sheath on my back. The fire of anger I felt in my heart was echoed by the white Phoenix emblem on my chest.

 

And now, Sinister and Apocalypse would feel the wrath of the White Phoenix.